I’ll be honest with you: Even though some of my favorite country artists right now are offspring of other famous country artists, whenever I see a new one coming up, I always roll my eyes. I’m not sure why, but in my head I think, “How good could they really be?” But time and time [...]
We’d all like to think that our country heroes live out the words to their songs. Some do, some don’t, and some it’s somewhere in the middle. The truth is getting sloshed at the bar every night till you have to fight your way to the exit and then end up in jail is probably [...]
With all the hubbub last week with new releases and news, I had little time to talk about Big John Cash, who had a birthday, and a posthumous release of American VI: Ain’t No Grave. But when Friday came, I got to leave the laptop behind, and head down to Austin to focus on The [...]
I’m gonna start this off with a prediction: Either this album will be some groundbreaking marquee release in rock n’ roll history, or it will be the most curious find in the bargain bin in short order. It is pure genius, or an unforgivable stroking of ego. Either way, Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon, is [...]
I really didn’t know what to expect from The .357 String Band’s new album Lightning from the North. I mean, were they going to introduce some new sound? Of course not, they ARE the new sound. Were they going to throw down the best album I’d heard in years? They already did that with their [...]
In the last few years, many new bands have sprung up in the new school Outlaw country scene. Some good, and some . . . well . . . not so good.
Some of these new bands seem to understand that addiction and the fight with inner devils and outer devils has been a theme of [...]
In the last year or two, many new artists and bands have sprung up in the Outlaw/ Underground country movement, many new fans, podcasts, etc. But this all would not be possible if it wasn’t for the hard work of a few musicians, the trunk of the tree from which these new branches have sprung [...]
Fortune would find that on my way down to Mexico, I was in Austin, TX the same day that Ray Wylie Hubbard’s new CD A: Enlightenment B: Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C), was being released, and he was making a short, low-fi appearance at the famed Waterloo Records. So I grabbed savingcountrymusic.com’s most [...]
If you want to see Jerry Jeff Walker, the best place to see him is at Luckenbach, TX. If you want to see BR549, you should see them at Robert’s Western World in Nashville. A Dwight Yoakam concert is probably a good bet anywhere, but if you ever get the chance, Bakersfield, CA is [...]
Ray Wylie Hubbard’s new album is a crooked tree with the carcass of a tire swing hanging from it. It is an oil painting laying face down in the dust of an old abandoned wood house. It is a muddy river . . . of blood. It is the skeleton springs of a mattress stuck [...]
I get lots of CD’s sent to me to review, and unfortunately I can’t review them all. And of course, a few are not worth reviewing, and I only write bad reviews in extreme cases. So I’m going to start going through my stack of CD’s regularly and at least mentioning the ones I think [...]
It seems like whenever I start making “Best Of” lists, I draw the ire of one group of people or another. I think I am misunderstood quite commonly that my “Top” picks mean that they are my favorite personally, or that maybe I am even trying to push some agenda.
I really do agonize over this [...]
There is nothing I take more serious then putting my name behind an album as being the best of any calendar year. Unlike some organizations who hand out such things to whoever can sell the most albums or show the most teen spirit, I understand that Albums of the Year set a precedent, and will [...]
When I heard that Izzy Zaidman, former lead guitar player for Wayne “The Train” Hancock was starting a new band, I was conflicted. Izzy was fired from Hancock’s band for assaulting steel guitar player Tony Locke, and when I spoke with Hancock in August, he said Izzy had been “black balled from the scene.” BUT, [...]
With his first official solo album, Junk, along with his good friend and talented musician in her own right Rachel Brooke, have put together a brilliant, quality, and surprisingly accessible long runner with an eponymous title.
This is one of those albums you can put on in the background of any gathering of any people, [...]
I’ve had numerous people whose musical tastes I appreciate tell me that I need to review the new album by the Rockabilly Filly Rosie Flores. The album is called Girl of the Century, and it has just been released on Bloodshot Records.
But to be perfectly honest, before I started hearing about this album, I [...]
Never mess with perfection. . . unless you can make perfection better.
Don’t know if I’m the first ever to say that, but after watching the .357 String Band with their new mando/dobro player Billy Cook, I believe in it wholeheartedly.
The .357 String band was perfect circa this last Spring. That’s why it was difficult to [...]
The Hank Williams female reincarnation known as Rachel Brooke and Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards have just finished up a tour through the Midwest, Texas, and Florida in support of their duo record A Bitter Harvest. All the eyewitness accounts I have come across have had nothing but glowing things to say, and as [...]
The Devil Makes Three is one of those bands that I have had the privilege to watch go from cutting their teeth playing for small crowds in dive bars to being one of the best-drawing, most successful punk-inspired string bands on the West Coast. The Devil Makes Three was ahead of the curve so to [...]
I hate to admit it, but before Pete Berwick contacted me and asked me if I could review his latest album, Just Another Day In Hell, I had never heard the name. But luckily my embarrassment can be drowned out by that somewhat ecstatic feeling you get when you discover a new artist whose music [...]
